


it's 4am

by cabinet_man



Category: Homestuck, Vast Error
Genre: Other, Quadrant Confusion, Quadrant Vacillation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23609476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabinet_man/pseuds/cabinet_man
Summary: The sun will be coming up soon.
Relationships: Dismas Mersiv/Murrit Turkin
Comments: 7
Kudos: 96





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ironically enough, i'm also posting this at 4am

It always does. No matter what happens, the goddamn sun always decides to cascade the planet in a light so bright that it’s near impossible to get any kind of sleep during it, unless you’ve modified your hive to ensure that light won’t filter in from the outside world.

Nevertheless, you aren’t in your hive. In fact, you’re far from it, actually. As of currently, you’re staring up at the sky next to your sleeping partner. Murrit passed out hours ago, but you haven’t been able to coax yourself into falling asleep, either. You’re too paranoid, being out here in the open like this. You don’t like it.

Your guardian is somewhere on the prowl, probably looking for you. Not that it’s worried, no, but moreso because it finds you useful in regards to feeding it the ores that it can’t get to on its own. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it’s a lusus, but rather your captor.

You still haven’t figured out how to fucking kill that thing yet, which is why you specifically requested that Murrit meet you here in person than to just show up at your door (hatch?). Usually you’d probably be more than happy to watch as your lusus snapped at him on the way towards the ladder, but this time...

Something in you changed at some point, and you don’t really know why. Murrit seemed to grow softer around you, seemed to be hesitant to hurt you. And his hesitance was absolutely fucking infuriating to you.

By no means were you yourself considered “soft.” You had an edge sharper than a diamond. Even he was aware of that. He’s seen it with his own eyes, how your bastard of a lusus has almost killed you all those times before. Hell, you even worked together. That was sweeps ago by now, but you still did all of his dirty work for him. You were his hired hitman, after all.

The way he now regarded you with this newfound softness, this strange kind of… intimacy that you’d only ever heard about from some of your other companions, it scared you. A lot. You two were bonded already in your black quadrant, and you were uncertain as to how quickly everything would fall apart if something were to try and change that. You’ve seen the way he’s been looking at you, with a look showing you that maybe he cares about you, that maybe something in him changed.

Maybe you both changed, after all. Maybe it wasn’t just you.

You look at him, watching as he breathes, slowly and evenly, his chest rising and falling. His shutter shades had been long since discarded. You don’t even remember where they’d gone, but all you knew was that you could see his face. He didn’t hold that smirk, and he actually looked… at peace. You don’t remember when the last time you’d seen him sleep so peacefully was either. Things have been tough for the both of you as of recently. There was the whole game thing that Murrit kept blabbering on about, and you’d been so focused on ridding the planet of your guardian’s species that the two of you had been nothing but stressed.

You roll onto your side and shift a little closer to him, just watching. Moments like these are what terrify you. Your gut churns, and you feel something stir up inside of you, but you know you can never admit the way you’re truly feeling. That’s not how this was supposed to go. That’s not what was supposed to be happening. You frown to yourself, and if he opened his eyes, he’d never be able to truly tell. Despite your predicament, you quite enjoyed the idea that he’d never truly understand how you were feeling. Maybe that’s what the two of you did best: conceal. He had his shades, you had your bandana. His eyes were covered, your mouth was covered.

You nuzzle into his chest, and his breathing falters a moment. You grow rigid, eyes going wide as you watch as his eyes blink open, but then they close, and remain closed. He wouldn’t remember this. He hadn’t been fully conscious, hadn’t fully processed just what you were doing. An arm drapes over you, and you close your eyes too.

You’d rather die with him here, like this, than while you were alone, strifing it out with your lusus. But by morning you’d have to leave him. Softness just wasn’t for you, wasn’t for either of you. Yet you crave it from him, constantly. Your breathing slows, but your heartbeat only quickens its pace.

You’re not really certain if it’s still because of how you know your lusus is looking for you or if it’s because of Murrit. But you don’t think you really want to know the answer to that.

Not yet, anyhow, and maybe not for a very long time.

In a perfect world, in a perfect life, maybe you could convince yourself that things would be okay between you and Murrit, but your emotions are getting all tangled up together and becoming a jumbled mess of hurt and confusion.

You wrap your own arm around Murrit as you drift off to sleep. And all you can dream about is that perfect world where the both of you could live perfect, carefree lives together.

A perfect world. You think you'd quite like that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay this wasnt supposed to get a second chapter but i absolutely needed to write out murrit's feelings so. yeah.

The golden rays of sunlight filter in through the slits of your shutter shades as you rouse from your slumber.

The first thing you notice is that at some point during the night, your shades had gone from being folded up in the pocket of your shorts to being adorned on your face, kind of successfully shielding your eyes from the skies. The second thing you notice is that Dismas is missing from the area.

You sit up, scanning the horizon for him- or, at least, for some kind of indicator that maybe he was still here somewhere, waiting for you.

Your heart sinks a little as you realize that no, Dismas is nowhere to be found, and you can’t help but frown. It’s not as if you don’t understand why he just up and ditched- he not only has to constantly ensure that his bastard of a lusus doesn’t throw a fucking tantrum and kill him, but you have no doubt that he’s also beginning to suspect your sudden... fondness towards him.

It crept up on you way too easily, and before you knew it, you were falling head over heels for the sonuvabitch.

You’re just not sure what  _ made  _ you begin to feel that way. You’re not supposed to be feeling this way towards him, and the thought makes you want to pull at your hair and scream out in frustration. Your emotions are fucking you up inside, and it’s no doubt also affecting him.

You push yourself off of the ground and stand up, dusting off your clothes as you watch the sun rise higher and higher in the sky. Your shades fall to the ground with a  _ clack  _ and you crush them under your foot, twisting the heel of your crocs to ensure that they’ll be beyond repair when you pick them back up.

There are certain things that you like to do when you’re feeling this way. Your love for winning doesn’t outweigh your hate for losing, and you think that by doing this, it’ll distract you from your feelings and let you off the hook again. Addressing the situation is not something you ever plan on doing, and setting up these no-wins is an easy way to squirrel yourself out of it. You just hope that it doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass later on down the road.

...the more you think about it, the more you realize that it’ll most likely happen. The minuscule things, like your feelings, are already bringing up problems for you and, by extension, Dismas, and it’s just something so small, so simple.

You know it’s neither of those things, but maybe if you keep on lying through your teeth and in your head then maybe you can convince yourself that it is. It’s nothing compared to when you backstabbed your old man Jack and decided to turn your life around for you, for  _ Dismas _ -

_ No. _

No, you didn’t do that for him. You did it for you and only you. Dismas had his own part to play, sure, but there is no way that you were feeling the opposite of what you were supposed to be feeling back then.

Right?

You pick up a piece of plastic from the ground and throw it off of the cliff. You watch as it goes over the edge and disappears somewhere below. You don’t bother to look for it. You can’t bring yourself to care enough to scale the ravine, and you also don’t find yourself caring about how you’re only helping to pollute your already polluted planet. It’s not like you’ll be here for much longer, anyhow.

It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump until the night where everything really matters. All you have to do now is wait. The sun rises higher and higher in the sky and you shield your eyes and look out over the horizon.

You’ve got work to do, and you’ve got even more work to do on your stupid fucking feelings towards your kismesis. If you’re gonna enter this game, you’ll enter with a clear head and you don’t need to be stressed over something so small.

Except you know it’s not small.

You’re just in too deep now. You can feel yourself drowning, and Dismas is just there, on the shore, watching you drown.

The atmosphere surrounding the two of you isn’t as tense as it used to be, back when you were still a gambling man and when he was wiping the blood of your victims off on his pants. You may have offered to help him clean up, much to his dismay, but he never did push you away. That’s always confused you, but you quite like confusing things. And Dismas is confusing and so is this weird limbo that your relationship is currently residing in.

Oh.

You have a feeling in your gut that you’re the reason why he’s been acting so off lately, so... distant. Secretive, almost. That’s probably why he left, why he didn’t bother to let you know that he was leaving you sometime during the night-

_ He put your shades on you. _

You're drowning, but Dismas is in the water with you. And you realize that you're the one pushing him under.

Fuck. You’re really in it now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [this fic has fanart now!!](https://twitter.com/busy_artist/status/1300959032967036928)

**Author's Note:**

> trrain-wreck.tumblr.com
> 
> anonumii @ twitter


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